Find a concise definition of your assigned word and then give an example from a text (or poem) we have read in class. Please type the definition, any additional explanation you think is needed, and the example below each term. Check out the following links as a start for definitions and explanations literary terms and rhetoric terms.
Fiction antagonist character in opposition to the protagonist. in Beowulf, Grendel is in opposition to Beowulf.
anticlimax a weak or disappointing conclusion. The Inferno concludes with little resolved, since Dante still has two more stages to go through. character a person represented in a story. Grendel, his mother, and the dragon are characters of Grendel.
dynamic undergoes change. Estella of Great Expectations changes from heartless to having a heart.
flat simple and unchanging. Startop plays a minor role in Great Expectations and does not change.
round characteristics and background are depicted with detail. We are given a lot of background information on Pip in Great Expectations. static unchanging. Virgil does not change in The Inferno.
stock recognizable even with little detail from the author. In Metamorphosis, the reader can infer a lot about Gregor.
climax the moment of greatest tension at which the outcome is to be decided
conflict a complication. In Oedipus, Oedipus is conflicted when he learns he has married his mother.
crisis a moment of high tension. The scene in Great Expectations where Orlick tries to murder Pip is a crisis.
denouement the outcome, conclusion, resolution. In Grendel, this is when Grendel falls to his death.
epilogue a concluding part after the resolution added to a literary work
exposition the opening portion that sets the scene by introducing the main characters and providing background information. Great Expectations opens with an exposition providing information about Pip's background.
falling action part of the plot after the climax. After Gregor dies in Metamorphosis, the story continues with his family as they move on.
flashback a scene relived in a character's memory. Oedipus experiences flashbacks to the crossroads where he murdered the king in Oedipus.
foil a character who contrasts with a major character. Biddy and Estella are foils of Great Expectations.
foreshadowing indication of events to come. The Witches' predictions foreshadow events of MacBeth.
incident an occurrence of an action or situation that is a separate unit of experience
motivation reason explaining a character’s behavior. Pip upset Orlick, giving him motivation to seek revenge on Pip in Great Expectations.
narrative voice/point of view perspective first person told from the focal character’s point of view, using "I," "my," etc. allowing the character to convey more emotions. Pip narrates Great Expectations from a first-person point of view.
unreliable narrator narrator is biased or ill-informed third person omniscient (unlimited) the narrator knows everything. The narrator of Beowulf is not limited. third person omniscient (limited) the narrator has limited knowledge. The narrator of Metamorphosis is limited to Gregor's thoughts and feelings.
objective goal trying to be acheived. Macbeth's objective in Macbeth is to become king.
protagonist the central character. Grendel is the protagonist of Grendel.
rising action events leading up to the climax. The layers of hell in The Inferno become increasingly captivating until the climax is reached.
stream-of-consciousness literary technique that presents a character’s thoughts and feelings as they occur. Right before Grendel falls to his death, Grendel is narrated through his stream of consciousness.
subplot a secondary plot strand in addition to the main plot. Miss Havisham's history with Compeyson is a secondary plot line of Great Expectations.
theme broad idea conveyed within the text. Existentialism is a theme of Grendel.
Drama
act one of the main divisions of a play. Shakespeare divides Macbeth into acts.
aside the actor speaks to the audience and is not heard by the other characters. Shakespeare uses this technique to create dramatic irony
catastrophe the point at which the circumstances overcome the central objective resulting in the dénouement. In Oedipus, the discovery that Oedipus is the murderer prevents him from carrying out his promise to find the murderer.
catharsis relieving emotional tension. Macbeth kills the two guards to ease his tension in Macbeth.
comedy genre where the central motif overcomes conflicting circumstances, resulting in a successful conclusion
comic relief an amusing scene that follows a scene of high tension. Macbeth’s knocking at the gate is a relief from Duncan’s murder.
deus ex machina a god introduced into a play to resolve a conflict.
farce a light, humorous play focused on plot rather than the development of character.
hamartia tragic flaw. In Oedipus, his flaw causes everything he was trying to prevent to happen.
hero admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. Beowulf is seen as a hero in Beowulf.
hubris excessive pride. Oedipus is too proud to realize all the evidence suggests he is the murderer.
monologue one actor speaks. In Macbeth, Banquo, alone, talks about his feelings towards Macbeth.
prologue an introductory scene, preceding the first act of a play. The prologue in Oedipus Rex is necessary for the reader to understand background information.
scene division of an act. Shakespeare divides each act into several scenes.
soliloquy character expresses innermost thoughts while alone. Macbeth struggles with his decision to murder Duncan in his soliloquy about the dagger.
tragedy a great person is fated to their downfall because of a tragic flaw. Oedipus is a tragedy.
tragic flaw the character defect that causes the downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy. Oedipus’s tragic flaw was his poor decision-making.
villain character with an evil objective. In Beowulf, Grendel is a villain.
Poetry
alliterationrepetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words. Sweet summer skies.
assonancer epetition of similar vowel sounds. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
blank verse written in meter (usually iambic pentameter) but with no rhyme
cacophony several harsh, discordant sounds. Blackberry eating.
cadence rhythmic pattern. Caesura-A natural pause or break in a line of poetry usually near the middle of the line. (ex) In Beowulf, “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.” conceit-A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different (ex).In the "The Flea" by John Donne, a metaphysical conceit between a flea and young romance is used to support the narrator's argument for a young woman to give up her virginity. consonance-The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words (ex) “lost” and “past” or “confess” and “dismiss”. controlling image- a literary device employing repetition so as to stress the theme of a work or a particular symbol. (ex)In Beowulf, the controlling image is the hall. There are various changing lights, as halls are built, attacked, restored, and abandoned.
couplet-In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. (ex) In Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish “Silent as the sleeve-worn stone/ Of casement ledges where moss has grown-” dirge-a brief funeral hymn or song dissonance-harsh-sounding language (ex) In the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll,“'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.” dramatic monologue-a poem representing itself as a speech made by one person to a silent listener, usually not the reader. (ex) In the poem “Hazel tells LaVerne”, Hazel is telling LaVerne about an Experience that she has with a frog who wants her to kiss him. At no point in the poem does LaVerne respond to anything that Hazel says. elegy-A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful. (ex) The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner end-stopped line-a verse line ending at a grammatical boundary or break, such as a dash, a closing parenthesis, or punctuation such as a colon, a semi-colon, or a period. The opposite to an end-stopped line is a line subject to enjambment. (ex) “Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.” All of the lines from “Root Cellar” by Theodore Roethke are examples of end-stopped lines because they all end with some sort of punctuation. enjambment-The continuation of a complete idea (a sentence or clause) from one line or couplet of a poem to the next line or couplet without a pause (ex) “My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.” In this passage from “Marks” by Linda Pastan only one of the lines end with a punctuation and the rest continue to the next line. This is an example of an enjambment because the though is continuing to the next line.
epic-A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. (ex)Beowulf euphony-a pleasing harmony of sounds. (ex) “In To Autumn” by John Keats, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;” foot-Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed. (ex)1.................2................3..............4 Had WE | but WORLD | e NOUGH | and TIME .... ..1.......... ..2......... ....3...............4 ThisCOY | nessLA | dyWERE | no CRIME These lines are from “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, which has eight syllables (four feet) per line. Each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
free verse- Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter.
“I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles Proceed from your great lips. It's worse than a barnyard. Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. Thirty years now I have labored To dredge the silt from your throat. I am none the wiser. Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol I crawl like an ant in mourning Over the weedy acres of your brow To mend the immense skull-plates and clear The bald, white tumuli of your eyes. A blue sky out of the Oresteia Arches above us. O father, all by yourself You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum. I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress. Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered In their old anarchy to the horizon-line. It would take more than a lightning-stroke To create such a ruin. Nights, I squat in the cornucopia Of your left ear, out of the wind, Counting the red stars and those of plum-color. The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue. My hours are married to shadow. No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel On the blank stones of the landing.” “The Colossus”(shown above) by the greatest writer ever, Sylvia Plath, has no set meter and thus is an free verse poem. heroic couplet-A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter. (ex) “Only science only will one genius fit; So vast is art, so narrow wit; Not only bounded to peculiar arts, But oft in those confined to single parts” iamb-A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed). (ex) u/ “away” iambic pentameter-A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means "five," as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry (ex) “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/a horse!” image-an expression that describes a literal sensation, whether of hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and feeling. (ex) “his brown skin hung like strips
like ancient wall-paper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wall-paper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
- the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly” In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, she describes how the fish looks. imagery- is the use of vivid description, usually rich in sensory words, to create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind (ex) “And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” In this passage of “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, the word choice allows the reader to get a vivid picture in his or her minds of the horrifying and horrendous death of this poor soldier. in media res- begins the story at some exciting point in the middle of the action, thereby gaining the reader's interest before explaining preceding events by flashbacks at some later stage. (ex) Metamorphosis by Kafka lyric-A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style. measure-the rhythm of a piece of poetry
meter-The arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables. (ex)1.................2................3..............4 Had WE | but WORLD | e NOUGH | and TIME .... ..1.......... ..2......... ....3...............4 ThisCOY | nessLA | dyWERE | no CRIME These lines are from “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. The poem is in iambic tetrameter, with eight syllables (four feet) per line and each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. octave-an eight-line stanza or poem Thefirst8 lines of “This World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth “The world is too much with us, late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers, little we see in Nature that is ours We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon, like this sea that bares her bosom to the moon, or the winds that will be howling at all hours and are upgathered now like sleeping flowers. with this, with everything, we are out of tune;” ode-a poem of high seriousness with irregular stanzaic forms (ex) “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of the happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,–
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.” This poem, Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats, is an example of an ode. persona-the speaker of a poem, a dramatic character distinguished from the poet quatrain-a four-line stanza, rhyming (ex) “’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves And the mome raths outgrabe. This is a quatrain from “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll refrain-A line or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza. (ex) “Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” In “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas (poem shown above), the line “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” is the line that is repeated at the end of stanzas one, three, five, and six. The line “Do not go gentle into that good night” is repeated at the end of stanza two and four. repetition- rhetorical device
The Pool Players.
We real cool. We
Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.” “In We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (shown above), the word “we is repeated” at the end of nearly all of the lines. rhyme- lines of verse characterized by the consonance of terminal words or syllables. (ex) “duck” “cluck” and “truck” end- All rhymes occur at line ends--the standard procedure. (ex) “For all the history ofgrief An empty doorway and a mapleleaf” The two words at theendof these lines in Ars Poectica by Archibald MacLeish rhyme. exact-Rhyme in which the final accented vowel and all succeeding consonants or syllables are identical, while the preceding consonants are different (ex) “lagging” and “bagging” external-external rhyme scheme is a pattern of words that rhyme on the “outside.” edge of the poem – the last syllable in the last word of each line in a stanza. (ex) “If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.” In “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen (shown above) many of the rhymes are external. (If the words are the same color they rhyme).
feminine-A multi-syllable rhyme that ends with one or more unstressed syllables (ex) “paper” and “vapor”, “vacation” and “proclamation”. internal-Rhyme that occurs within a line or passage, whether or in some kind of pattern: masculine-A rhyme that occurs in a final stressed syllable (ex) “cat” and “hat”, “endow” and “vow”, “observe” and “deserve”. Near (slant)- The words are similar but lack perfect correspondence. (ex) “A poem should be motionless intime As the moonclimbs” The two words at the end of these lines in Ars Poectica by Archibald MacLeish seem to rhyme exactly, but the “s” at the end of climb those off the exactness of the rhythm and makes it a slant rhythm. “Canned” and “Conned” are another example of near (slant) rhythms. rhythm-an audible metrical pattern inside verse boundaries established by the pause scansion-the scanning of verse, that is, dividing it into metrical feet and identifying its rhythm by encoding stressed syllables (stresses, ictus) and unstressed syllables (slacks). sestet-a six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet (ex) Thelast6 lines of “This World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth “It moves us not. –Great God! I’d rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,- So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Trion blow his wreathed horn.” sonnet-A lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line "sestet," with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are written generally in iambic pentameter. (ex) “The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth and “Sonnet 138” by William Shakespeare. English-(or Shakespearean) sonnet. The Englished form of the Italian sonnet, with three quatrains and a concluding couplet, with the scheme abab cdcd efef gg. (ex) Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare Italian-a brief song or lyric of indeterminate rhyme scheme, but also a 14-line poem patterned on forms popularized by Petrarch, Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, and Shakespeare (ex) The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth spondee-A metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed). (ex) “dead set” stanza-Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme. (ex)“We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.” In “Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy (which a part of the poem is shown above) line 1-4 are one stanza and lines 5-8 are another. stress-The prominence or emphasis given to particular syllables. Stressed syllables usually stand out because they have long, rather than short, vowels, or because they have a different pitch or are louder than other syllables. (ex) In the word “acoustic”, the “ou” sound is stressed and in the word “exploit”, the “oi” sound is stressed. trochee-A metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or unstressed). (ex.) /u “happy” volta-a jump or shift in direction of the emotions or thought, usually somewhat after the middle of the Sonnet
Figures of Speech allusion-a reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, movement, etc (ex) In “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, there is an allusion to the Humber. “I by the tide/ Of Humber would complain.” The Humber is a river in England, which is were Marvell is from. apostrophe-an address to a dead or absent person or personification as if he or she were present. (ex) “The Tyger” is an apostrophe because he speaks to the tiger as if he is capable of responding. euphemism-a word or phrase used in place of a term that might be considered too direct, harsh, unpleasant, or offensive (ex.) “Passed away” and “went to heaven” are euphemisms for died and “made love” is a euphemism for having sex. hyperbole-exaggeration beyond reasonable credence (ex) “My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases, at whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring Whose palms are bulls in china, bur in linen, And have no cunning with any soft things” In the first stanza of “Love Poem” by John Freerick Nims (which is shown above), Nims hyperbolizes just how clumsy his love is. He makes it appears as if she can not touch ANYTHING with out breaking/destroying it. litotes-A figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite. (ex.) In Beowulf the poet wrote, “That [sword] was not useless / to the warrior now”, which is a litote for saying that the sword was useful. Saying “I am not unwell” is a litote for “I am fine.” metaphor-A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected. (ex) “It's raining cats and dogs”
extended-A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem (ex) In “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by ee cummings, "Anyone," is a metaphor for any one in the world that chooses to be different. The entire poem is an extended metaphor for life in a society tries to avoid change. controlling-Runs throughout an entire work and determines form or nature (ex) Blackberry eating is a metaphor for writing poetry throughout “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell metonymy-a figure of speech in which the poet substitutes a word normally associated with something for the term usually naming that thing (ex) “But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;” In this line from “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvel the chariot is an example of metonymy because it becomes a stand in for time. Or in Beowulf substituting “cup” for mead” onomatopoeia- A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds (ex) “quack”, “buzz”, “moo” oxymoron-an expression impossible in fact but not necessarily self-contradictor (ex) The line “alive enough to have the strength to die” in “Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy is an oxymoron.
personification giving inanimate objects human actions/emotions
e.g. in Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones”
“words played between us to and fro…the smile on your mouth was the deadest thing”
simile a comparison made between 2 unlike objects using “like” or “as”
e.g. in A. L. Tennyson’s “The Eagle”
“like a thunderbolt he falls”
symbol an object or an action that represents something beyond its literal self
e.g. Macbeth’s dagger is literally the weapon he uses to murder Duncan, but it also symbolizes his manhood and his decision to put his thoughts into action.
synecdoche a type of metaphor where the part stands for the whole and the whole stands for the part
e.g. In Maxine Kumin’s “Woodchucks,” the soldier says “I sight along the barrel in my sleep.” By barrel he means the entire gun.
e.g. in Beowulf, a ship may be referred to as a keel (just the bottom of a ship's hull)
understatement expressing something as less of what it actually is, for a similar effect as verbal irony (sarcasm)
e.g. In Chapter 1 of John Gardner’s Grendel, Grendel complains about the world and its cruelty towards him, but then merely concludes “on occasion it’s been worse” when in reality he has been traumatized as a child and has faced more than one existential breakdown (7).
Elements of Style
ambiguity a word, statement, action, or situation allowing for two or more interpretations that may all be supported by the context of a work
e.g. in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, Gus talks about a cup and how its “saucer’s black, except for right in the middle, where the cup goes, where its white.” This could have meaning as deep as pointing out how good is surrounded by evil, or one could dismiss it as merely another trivial detail of this theater of the absurd.
atmosphere the mood or pervasive feeling created by a work
e.g. Act 1 Sc. 1 of Macbeth has a chilling, sinister, and foreboding atmosphere because of the thunder and lighting, and the entrance and unfortunate prophecies of the three witches
dialogue a conversation between two or more characters; may be used in place of narration to reveal the plot or define characters/setting
e.g. Pip and Magwitch in Great Expectations
“’I think you have got the ague,’ said I.
‘I’m much of your opinion, boy,’ said he” (Dickens 17).
diction the writer’s choice of words (dictionary, get it?)
e.g. In Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” posted above: “he was speckled with barnacles,” the choice of the verb creates beauty from ugliness.
colloquial familiar, informal language (“local”)
e.g. “Hazel tells LaVerne” “Last night / im cleanin out my / howard johnsons ladies room” (K. H. Machan)
versus “The Unkown Citizen” which is more formal, even stiff “He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be / One against whom there was no official complaint” (W. H. Auden)
connotation the emotions and other implications associated with a word
e.g. “immigrant“ is neutral, but “alien” implies an intrusive foreigner
denotation the literal (dictionary) definition of a word in the previous example, alien literally means “belonging to a foreign country”
dialect language spoken by a definable group of people (from a particular region, social class, etc.)
e.g. In “Hazel tells LaVerne,” the speaker’s lack of “proper” grammar reveals that she is probably a lower-income cleaning lady
formaldiction dignified, impersonal, elevated language
see counterexample for colloquial, “The Unknown Citizen”
epigram a short satirical, witty, sometimes paradoxical poem; usually 2-4 lines (a brief couplet, quatrain)
e.g. in Shakespeare's Macbeth:
(Act 1 Sc. 6 lines 74-75) "To beguile the time, / look like the time."
(Act 1 Sc. 7 lines 94-95) "Away, and mock the time with fairest show. / False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
(Act 4 Sc. 2 lines 83-85) "I am in this earthly world, where to do harm / is often laudable, to do good sometime / accounted dangerous folly."
invective insulting, abusing, highly critical language
e.g. Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 4 Sc. 3 lines 67-73
"Not in the legions / of horrid hell can come a devil more damned / in evils to top Macbeth. ...I grant him bloody, / luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, / sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin / that has a name."
inversion (anastrophe)
placing the adjective after the noun when we expect to find it before the noun (a type of hyperbaton)
also placing the verb before the noun
Shakespeare does this in Macbeth, sometimes to fit his writing to the rhythm of iambic pentameter:
(Act 3 Sc. 3 lines 3-5) "He delivers / our offices and what we have to do / to the direction just." (inverted noun & adjective)
(Act 3 Sc. 2 line 19) "But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer..." (inverted noun & adjective)
(Act 4 Sc. 1 line 45) "Something wicked this way comes" (inverted verb & modifier)
IRONY
having a difference between what appears to be and what is actually true
e.g. In The Metamorphosis, we’d expect Gregor to show a little more concern that he’s transformed in to a bug overnight, but instead he says “Apart from a really excessive drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor, in fact, felt quite well and even had a really strong appetite” (Franz Kafka).
dramatic irony when the audience knows something that the characters don't;
often achieved with narrated flashbacks and--in plays--asides or monologues
e.g. in Oedipus Rex, the audience is allowed to put the pieces together way before Oedipus comes to terms with the fact that he murdered his father and slept with his mother
situational irony what actually happens is exactly opposite of what was expected
e.g. Lady Macbeth, early on, is the one to insist that Macbeth kill Duncan.
e.g. Mr. Wemmick, who comes off as a harsh man to Pip while in Jaggers's office, invites Pip to his home. Wemmick turns out to be a very caring son--a softy who enjoys creativity when it comes to home, complete with a moat and drawbridge.
verbal irony = sarcasm, saying something but meaning the opposite
e.g. “The Unknown Citizen”
“Was he happy? The question is absurd. / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard” (W. H. Auden)
poet means opposite of what his speaker, “the establishment” is saying
mood the emotional atmosphere created by the author/poet
e.g. Sophocles creates a gloomy mood using a morbid tone in saying “Thebes is tossed on a murdering sea…children die unborn” (4)
paradox a self-contradictory statement that is actually true
e.g. Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (Act 1 Sc. 1 line 12)
proverb a common short saying stating a general truth
e.g. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” implies that we ought to refrain from anticipating the future greedily.
pun a play on words
Shakespeare does this frequently, like in Macbeth:
“Much drink…makes him stand to and not stand to” (Act 2 Sc 3 lines 32-36).
sarcasm see: verbal irony
Saying the opposite of what one means
satire writing that ridicules human folly to bring about social reform
e.g. “The Unknown Soldier” satirized the unimportant priorities of the cold “establishment” to point out that life is more than being an obedient citizen who fits current social standards.
slang very informal diction (colloquial language)
e.g. Gwendolyn Brook’s “We Real Cool”
“We /strike straight…We / thin gin. We / Jazz June.”
tone the writer’s attitude toward the subject and the audience
e.g. biting, scornful, admiring
*note difference between mood and tone (see above)
voice the unique characterization of the speaker through tone and other elements of style
e.g. the narration by young Pip in Great Expectations is rather humorous, but also sophisticated and acutely observant, as if he’s telling his story as an older, wiser self:
“Uncle Pumblechook; a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish…every Christmas Day…presented himself, as a profound novelty with exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumbbells” (Charles Dickens 22).
Form
allegory a narration or description where events, actions, characters, setting, & objects symbolize specific ideas/abstractions, usually restricted to a single meaning
e.g. Galway Kinnell’s “Blackberry Eating”
e.g. e.e. cummings’s “anyone lived in a pretty how town”
e.g. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”
anecdote a short personal---and often humorous---story often told to convey one specific point
e.g. In the second chapter of John Gardner’s Grendel, Grendel talks about the first time he encountered men when they thought he was a tree god. On the surface, his recount was humorous, but being satirical, it’s message was actually rather sad.
diary prose written as if one is recording aspects of one’s life; plot will progress chronologically as seen through the speaker’s eyes
e.g. The Diary of Anne Frank or any similar memoirs
discourse written or spoken communication, debate
e.g. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth argue about whether to go ahead and kill Duncan (Act 1 Sc. 7)
argumentation how a speaker makes a case for his/her proposal, debating and defending it with (logical) reasoning
e.g. In Act 1 Sc. 7 of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to follow through with Duncan’s murder, asking “what beast was ‘it then, / That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man” as if it were Macbeth’s duty as a husband to do what it takes to become king (Shakespeare lines 54-56).
description a delivery of details for direct characterization, establishing setting, conveying some other idea, etc.
e.g. Pip’s characterization of Uncle Pumblechook (see voice)
e.g. in J. F. Nims’s “Love Poem” the woman “whose palms are bulls in china” is said to be a “misfit in any space. And never on time.”
exposition usually the beginning of a fictional work where characters and plot are introduced and setting, tone/mood may be set
e.g. In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka introduces the demanding family and boss, as well as how “One morning, …Gregor Samsa…discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. …The dreary weather…made him quite melancholy. …’O God,’ he thought, ‘what a demanding job I’ve chosen!’ …Once I’ve got together the money to pay off my parents deb…then I’ll make the big break. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.”
NARRATION how a story is told (through what speaker and using what stylistic elements) 1st person (narrator is a character in the story)
e.g. Pip, Great Expectations 2nd person (audience is a part of the story)
e.g. Goosebumps choose-your-own-fate stories 3rd person (narrator is an outside observer, detached from the actions in the story);
e.g. The Metamorphosis 3rd person omniscient is aware of all characters’ thoughts and feelings
e.g. Beowulf
ESSAY prose written to convey a particular idea, make a case for a specific point (thesis)
e.g. Ralph Ellison’s “On Becoming a Writer”
e.g. Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
formal written in an elevated, sophisticated style (i.e. formal diction)
A formal essay will usually have serious intentions, even if it is satirical and humorous like “A Modest Proposal," which pretends to suggest the solution to poverty is eating babies. http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/modest.html humorous written to entertain the audience, although funny references and use of sarcasm may contain deeper meaning (like in satire); may be formal or informal
e.g. John Updike’s “The Disposable Rocket,” which discusses certain aspects of manhood informal written using familiar, conversational language (i.e. informal diction) that may help to more directly reach out to audience but still convincingly make a serious point
e.g. Philip Lopate’s “On Shaving a Beard”
fable a short story, typically with animal characters, that conveys a moral
e.g. Aesop’s “The Tortoise and the Hare” tells us slow and steady wins the race.
genre a classification of writing/literature
e.g. short stories vs. novels, Shakespearean vs. Greek tradgedies
novel usually a lengthy work written in prose with a complex plot that contains several minor climaxes in addition to the climax of the major issue
e.g. Great Expectations, Grendel
parable a simple story used to teach a moral/spiritual lesson
e.g. In the Bible, there is a story of the prodigal son who strays from home, squanders his father’s money, but is still reaccepted by his father. (lesson of God’s forgiveness)
prose language written/spoken in its ordinary form, without any metrical structure (opposite of verse)
e.g. The Porter in Macbeth Act 2 Sc. 3 speaks to Macduff in prose. Notice how his speech is not broken up into 10-syllable lines like the other characters, who are of a higher status. “Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance” (lines29-31).
RHETORICAL FORMS the following three are ways a writer makes a case for his argument and wins over his audience:
ethos an appeal based on the character (the reputation) of the speaker
e.g. advertisements for family-owned companies, or companies that have been around for more decades
e.g. Hollister, est. 1922
e.g. http://about.ralphlauren.com/default.asp?ab=footer_aboutus
pathos an appeal based on emotion & sympathy
e.g. commercials that ask for donations to impoverished children, speeches like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
logos an appeal based on logic and reason
e.g. statistical analyses, historical documents
e.g. world history textbook
verse language written/spoken in broken lines, often with a set rhythmic pattern that may rhyme; the opposite of prose
e.g. William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” does not rhyme, but its one sentence is written in the shape of 4 wheelbarrows so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
e.g. Shakespeare’s Macbeth, written in iambic pentameter (5 sets of stressed & unstressed syllables per line)
Syntax
antithesis putting together two opposing terms, phrases, or clauses to emphasize their contrasts
e.g. In Act 1 Sc. 5 of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth says “What thou wouldst highly, / that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false / and yet wouldst wrongly win” (lines 20-23).
e.g. famous saying “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)
balanced sentence this is constructed to emphasize a similarity/contrast between two or more of its parts (its words, phrases, clauses)
e.g. “The wind in our ears drove us crazy and pushed us on.” (taken from class handout)
coherence this refers to the logic & consistency of a piece of writing (so that the individual statements fit together to make a convincing overall argument)
e.g. Lady Macbeth’s reasoning for having Macbeth murder Duncan (Act 1 Sc. 7)
complex sentence this contains one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses
e.g. “If he could have known how nearly the compliment had lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would have paid it” (Dickens 174, from Great Expectation)
compound complex this contains two or more independent clauses, and one or more dependent clauses
e.g. “It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the garden, was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which her grandpapa would have come in tote the book, if he ever had come at all” (Dickens 171 in Great Expectations).
ellipsis the non-metrical omission of letters or words that does not prevent the reader from understanding what is meant
“There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the baby’s next successor who was as yet neither” (171). Here in Great Expectations, Dickens doesn’t bother with explaining “either” and “neither” to mean “boy or girl.”
inverted sentence reordering the components of a sentence differently from how it would normally be written
(switching the subject and the verb to fit a phrase to a poetic rhythm, etc.)
Shakespeare does this frequently. See examples under inversion (anastrophe)
In Great Expectations:
"My father's family name being Pirrip...my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip" (Dickens 1).
"I took it upon myself to impress Biddy...with the grave obligation I considered my friends under" (Dickens 129).
"He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off" (Dickens 128).
loose sentence this expresses its main thought in the beginning of the sentence in correct grammatical form, but then is followed by a string of details, often in segmented phrases
e.g. Dylan Thomas’s Quite Early Some Morning
“I was born in a large Welsh town at the beginning of the Great War, an ugly, lovely town (or so it was, and is to me) crawling, sprawling by a long and splendid curving shore where truant boys and sandfield boys and old men, from nowhere, beachcomed, idled, and paddled,...hung about on the fringes of the crowd to hear the fierce religious speakers who shouted at the sea, as though it were wicked and wrong to roll in and out like that, whitehorsed and full of fishes.”
Rhetorical forms were found in:
"The Art of Rhetoric: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos." Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) :: Architecture, Business, Engineering, IT, Humanities, Science__. 18 Apr. 2009 <http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/webclass/web/project1/group4/>.
Find a concise definition of your assigned word and then give an example from a text (or poem) we have read in class. Please type the definition, any additional explanation you think is needed, and the example below each term. Check out the following links as a start for definitions and explanations literary terms and rhetoric terms.
Fiction
antagonist character in opposition to the protagonist. in Beowulf, Grendel is in opposition to Beowulf.
anticlimax a weak or disappointing conclusion. The Inferno concludes with little resolved, since Dante still has two more stages to go through.
character a person represented in a story. Grendel, his mother, and the dragon are characters of Grendel.
dynamic undergoes change. Estella of Great Expectations changes from heartless to having a heart.
flat simple and unchanging. Startop plays a minor role in Great Expectations and does not change.
round characteristics and background are depicted with detail. We are given a lot of background information on Pip in Great Expectations.
static unchanging. Virgil does not change in The Inferno.
stock recognizable even with little detail from the author. In Metamorphosis, the reader can infer a lot about Gregor.
climax the moment of greatest tension at which the outcome is to be decided
conflict a complication. In Oedipus, Oedipus is conflicted when he learns he has married his mother.
crisis a moment of high tension. The scene in Great Expectations where Orlick tries to murder Pip is a crisis.
denouement the outcome, conclusion, resolution. In Grendel, this is when Grendel falls to his death.
epilogue a concluding part after the resolution added to a literary work
exposition the opening portion that sets the scene by introducing the main characters and providing background information. Great Expectations opens with an exposition providing information about Pip's background.
falling action part of the plot after the climax. After Gregor dies in Metamorphosis, the story continues with his family as they move on.
flashback a scene relived in a character's memory. Oedipus experiences flashbacks to the crossroads where he murdered the king in Oedipus.
foil a character who contrasts with a major character. Biddy and Estella are foils of Great Expectations.
foreshadowing indication of events to come. The Witches' predictions foreshadow events of MacBeth.
incident an occurrence of an action or situation that is a separate unit of experience
motivation reason explaining a character’s behavior. Pip upset Orlick, giving him motivation to seek revenge on Pip in Great Expectations.
narrative voice/point of view perspective
first person told from the focal character’s point of view, using "I," "my," etc. allowing the character to convey more emotions. Pip narrates Great Expectations from a first-person point of view.
unreliable narrator narrator is biased or ill-informed
third person omniscient (unlimited) the narrator knows everything. The narrator of Beowulf is not limited.
third person omniscient (limited) the narrator has limited knowledge. The narrator of Metamorphosis is limited to Gregor's thoughts and feelings.
objective goal trying to be acheived. Macbeth's objective in Macbeth is to become king.
protagonist the central character. Grendel is the protagonist of Grendel.
rising action events leading up to the climax. The layers of hell in The Inferno become increasingly captivating until the climax is reached.
stream-of-consciousness literary technique that presents a character’s thoughts and feelings as they occur. Right before Grendel falls to his death, Grendel is narrated through his stream of consciousness.
subplot a secondary plot strand in addition to the main plot. Miss Havisham's history with Compeyson is a secondary plot line of Great Expectations.
theme broad idea conveyed within the text. Existentialism is a theme of Grendel.
Drama
act one of the main divisions of a play. Shakespeare divides Macbeth into acts.
aside the actor speaks to the audience and is not heard by the other characters. Shakespeare uses this technique to create dramatic irony
catastrophe the point at which the circumstances overcome the central objective resulting in the dénouement. In Oedipus, the discovery that Oedipus is the murderer prevents him from carrying out his promise to find the murderer.
catharsis relieving emotional tension. Macbeth kills the two guards to ease his tension in Macbeth.
comedy genre where the central motif overcomes conflicting circumstances, resulting in a successful conclusion
comic relief an amusing scene that follows a scene of high tension. Macbeth’s knocking at the gate is a relief from Duncan’s murder.
deus ex machina a god introduced into a play to resolve a conflict.
farce a light, humorous play focused on plot rather than the development of character.
hamartia tragic flaw. In Oedipus, his flaw causes everything he was trying to prevent to happen.
hero admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. Beowulf is seen as a hero in Beowulf.
hubris excessive pride. Oedipus is too proud to realize all the evidence suggests he is the murderer.
monologue one actor speaks. In Macbeth, Banquo, alone, talks about his feelings towards Macbeth.
prologue an introductory scene, preceding the first act of a play. The prologue in Oedipus Rex is necessary for the reader to understand background information.
scene division of an act. Shakespeare divides each act into several scenes.
soliloquy character expresses innermost thoughts while alone. Macbeth struggles with his decision to murder Duncan in his soliloquy about the dagger.
tragedy a great person is fated to their downfall because of a tragic flaw. Oedipus is a tragedy.
tragic flaw the character defect that causes the downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy. Oedipus’s tragic flaw was his poor decision-making.
villain character with an evil objective. In Beowulf, Grendel is a villain.
Poetry
alliterationrepetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words. Sweet summer skies.
assonancer epetition of similar vowel sounds. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
blank verse written in meter (usually iambic pentameter) but with no rhyme
cacophony several harsh, discordant sounds. Blackberry eating.
cadence rhythmic pattern.
Caesura-A natural pause or break in a line of poetry usually near the middle of the line.
(ex) In Beowulf, “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.”
conceit-A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different
(ex). In the "The Flea" by John Donne, a metaphysical conceit between a flea and young romance is used to support the narrator's argument for a young woman to give up her virginity.
consonance-The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words
(ex) “lost” and “past” or “confess” and “dismiss”.
controlling image- a literary device employing repetition so as to stress the theme of a work or a particular symbol.
(ex) In Beowulf, the controlling image is the hall. There are various changing lights, as halls are built, attacked, restored, and abandoned.
couplet-In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought.
(ex) In Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish “Silent as the sleeve-worn stone/ Of casement ledges where moss has grown-”
dirge-a brief funeral hymn or song
dissonance-harsh-sounding language
(ex) In the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, “'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
dramatic monologue-a poem representing itself as a speech made by one person to a silent listener, usually not the reader.
(ex) In the poem “Hazel tells LaVerne”, Hazel is telling LaVerne about an Experience that she has with a frog who wants her to kiss him. At no point in the poem does LaVerne respond to anything that Hazel says.
elegy-A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful.
(ex) The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
end-stopped line-a verse line ending at a grammatical boundary or break, such as a dash, a closing parenthesis, or punctuation such as a colon, a semi-colon, or a period. The opposite to an end-stopped line is a line subject to enjambment.
(ex) “Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.”
All of the lines from “Root Cellar” by Theodore Roethke are examples of end-stopped lines because they all end with some sort of punctuation.
enjambment-The continuation of a complete idea (a sentence or clause) from one line or couplet of a poem to the next line or couplet without a pause
(ex) “My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.”
In this passage from “Marks” by Linda Pastan only one of the lines end with a punctuation and the rest continue to the next line. This is an example of an enjambment because the though is continuing to the next line.
epic-A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure.
(ex) Beowulf
euphony-a pleasing harmony of sounds.
(ex) “In To Autumn” by John Keats, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;”
foot-Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed.
(ex) 1.................2................3..............4
Had WE | but WORLD | e NOUGH | and TIME
.... ..1.......... ..2......... ....3...............4
This COY | ness LA | dy WERE | no CRIME
These lines are from “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, which has eight syllables (four feet) per line. Each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It's worse than a barnyard.
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.
Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol
I crawl like an ant in mourning
Over the weedy acres of your brow
To mend the immense skull-plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.
A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered
In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,
Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.”
“The Colossus”(shown above) by the greatest writer ever, Sylvia Plath, has no set meter and thus is an free verse poem.
heroic couplet-A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter.
(ex) “Only science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow wit;
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts”
iamb-A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed).
(ex) u/ “away”
iambic pentameter-A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means "five," as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry
(ex) “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/a horse!”
image-an expression that describes a literal sensation, whether of hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and feeling.
(ex) “his brown skin hung like strips
like ancient wall-paper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wall-paper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
- the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly”
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, she describes how the fish looks.
imagery- is the use of vivid description, usually rich in sensory words, to create pictures, or images, in the reader's mind
(ex) “And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs”
In this passage of “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, the word choice allows the reader to get a vivid picture in his or her minds of the horrifying and horrendous death of this poor soldier.
in media res- begins the story at some exciting point in the middle of the action, thereby gaining the reader's interest before explaining preceding events by flashbacks at some later stage.
(ex) Metamorphosis by Kafka
lyric-A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style.
measure- the rhythm of a piece of poetry
meter-The arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables.
(ex) 1.................2................3..............4
Had WE | but WORLD | e NOUGH | and TIME
.... ..1.......... ..2......... ....3...............4
This COY | ness LA | dy WERE | no CRIME
These lines are from “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. The poem is in iambic tetrameter, with eight syllables (four feet) per line and each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
octave-an eight-line stanza or poem
The first 8 lines of “This World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth
“The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,
little we see in Nature that is ours
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon,
like this sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
or the winds that will be howling at all hours
and are upgathered now like sleeping flowers.
with this, with everything, we are out of tune;”
ode-a poem of high seriousness with irregular stanzaic forms
(ex) “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of the happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,–
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.”
This poem, Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats, is an example of an ode.
persona-the speaker of a poem, a dramatic character distinguished from the poet
quatrain-a four-line stanza, rhyming
(ex) “’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
This is a quatrain from “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll
refrain-A line or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza.
(ex) “Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
In “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas (poem shown above), the line “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” is the line that is repeated at the end of stanzas one, three, five, and six. The line “Do not go gentle into that good night” is repeated at the end of stanza two and four.
repetition- rhetorical device
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.”
“In We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (shown above), the word “we is repeated” at the end of nearly all of the lines.
rhyme- lines of verse characterized by the consonance of terminal words or syllables.
(ex) “duck” “cluck” and “truck”
end- All rhymes occur at line ends--the standard procedure.
(ex) “For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf”
The two words at the end of these lines in Ars Poectica by Archibald MacLeish rhyme.
exact-Rhyme in which the final accented vowel and all succeeding consonants or syllables are identical, while the preceding consonants are different
(ex) “lagging” and “bagging”
external- external rhyme scheme is a pattern of words that rhyme on the “outside.” edge of the poem – the last syllable in the last word of each line in a stanza.
(ex) “If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
In “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen (shown above) many of the rhymes are external. (If the words are the same color they rhyme).
feminine-A multi-syllable rhyme that ends with one or more unstressed syllables
(ex) “ paper” and “vapor”, “ vacation” and “proclamation”.
internal-Rhyme that occurs within a line or passage, whether or in some kind of pattern:
masculine-A rhyme that occurs in a final stressed syllable
(ex) “cat” and “hat”, “endow” and “vow”, “observe” and “deserve”.
Near (slant)- The words are similar but lack perfect correspondence.
(ex) “A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs”
The two words at the end of these lines in Ars Poectica by Archibald MacLeish seem to rhyme exactly, but the “s” at the end of climb those off the exactness of the rhythm and makes it a slant rhythm. “Canned” and “Conned” are another example of near (slant) rhythms.
rhythm-an audible metrical pattern inside verse boundaries established by the pause
scansion-the scanning of verse, that is, dividing it into metrical feet and identifying its rhythm by encoding stressed syllables (stresses, ictus) and unstressed syllables (slacks).
sestet-a six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet
(ex) The last 6 lines of “This World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth
“It moves us not. –Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Trion blow his wreathed horn.”
sonnet-A lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line "sestet," with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are written generally in iambic pentameter.
(ex) “The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth and “Sonnet 138” by William Shakespeare.
English-(or Shakespearean) sonnet. The Englished form of the Italian sonnet, with three quatrains and a concluding couplet, with the scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
(ex) Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare
Italian-a brief song or lyric of indeterminate rhyme scheme, but also a 14-line poem patterned on forms popularized by Petrarch, Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, and Shakespeare
(ex) The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth
spondee-A metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed).
(ex) “dead set”
stanza-Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme.
(ex)“We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.”
In “Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy (which a part of the poem is shown above) line 1-4 are one stanza and lines 5-8 are another.
stress-The prominence or emphasis given to particular syllables. Stressed syllables usually stand out because they have long, rather than short, vowels, or because they have a different pitch or are louder than other syllables.
(ex) In the word “acoustic”, the “ou” sound is stressed and in the word “exploit”, the “oi” sound is stressed.
trochee-A metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or unstressed).
(ex.) /u “happy”
volta- a jump or shift in direction of the emotions or thought, usually somewhat after the middle of the Sonnet
Figures of Speech
allusion-a reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, movement, etc
(ex) In “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, there is an allusion to the Humber. “I by the tide/ Of Humber would complain.” The Humber is a river in England, which is were Marvell is from.
apostrophe-an address to a dead or absent person or personification as if he or she were present.
(ex) “The Tyger” is an apostrophe because he speaks to the tiger as if he is capable of responding.
euphemism- a word or phrase used in place of a term that might be considered too direct, harsh, unpleasant, or offensive
(ex.) “Passed away” and “went to heaven” are euphemisms for died and “made love” is a euphemism for having sex.
hyperbole-exaggeration beyond reasonable credence
(ex) “My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
at whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring
Whose palms are bulls in china, bur in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft things”
In the first stanza of “Love Poem” by John Freerick Nims (which is shown above), Nims hyperbolizes just how clumsy his love is. He makes it appears as if she can not touch ANYTHING with out breaking/destroying it.
litotes-A figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite.
(ex.) In Beowulf the poet wrote, “That [sword] was not useless / to the warrior now”, which is a litote for saying that the sword was useful. Saying “I am not unwell” is a litote for “I am fine.”
metaphor-A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected.
(ex) “It's raining cats and dogs”
extended-A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem
(ex) In “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by ee cummings, "Anyone," is a metaphor for any one in the world that chooses to be different. The entire poem is an extended metaphor for life in a society tries to avoid change.
controlling-Runs throughout an entire work and determines form or nature
(ex) Blackberry eating is a metaphor for writing poetry throughout “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell
metonymy-a figure of speech in which the poet substitutes a word normally associated with something for the term usually naming that thing
(ex) “But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;”
In this line from “His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvel the chariot is an example of metonymy because it becomes a stand in for time. Or in Beowulf substituting “cup” for mead”
onomatopoeia- A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds
(ex) “quack”, “buzz”, “moo”
oxymoron-an expression impossible in fact but not necessarily self-contradictor
(ex) The line “alive enough to have the strength to die” in “Neutral Tones” by Thomas Hardy is an oxymoron.
personification giving inanimate objects human actions/emotions
e.g. in Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones”
“words played between us to and fro…the smile on your mouth was the deadest thing”
simile a comparison made between 2 unlike objects using “like” or “as”
e.g. in A. L. Tennyson’s “The Eagle”
“like a thunderbolt he falls”
symbol an object or an action that represents something beyond its literal self
e.g. Macbeth’s dagger is literally the weapon he uses to murder Duncan, but it also symbolizes his manhood and his decision to put his thoughts into action.
synecdoche a type of metaphor where the part stands for the whole and the whole stands for the part
e.g. In Maxine Kumin’s “Woodchucks,” the soldier says “I sight along the barrel in my sleep.” By barrel he means the entire gun.
e.g. in Beowulf, a ship may be referred to as a keel (just the bottom of a ship's hull)
understatement expressing something as less of what it actually is, for a similar effect as verbal irony (sarcasm)
e.g. In Chapter 1 of John Gardner’s Grendel, Grendel complains about the world and its cruelty towards him, but then merely concludes “on occasion it’s been worse” when in reality he has been traumatized as a child and has faced more than one existential breakdown (7).
Elements of Style
ambiguity a word, statement, action, or situation allowing for two or more interpretations that may all be supported by the context of a worke.g. in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, Gus talks about a cup and how its “saucer’s black, except for right in the middle, where the cup goes, where its white.” This could have meaning as deep as pointing out how good is surrounded by evil, or one could dismiss it as merely another trivial detail of this theater of the absurd.
atmosphere the mood or pervasive feeling created by a work
e.g. Act 1 Sc. 1 of Macbeth has a chilling, sinister, and foreboding atmosphere because of the thunder and lighting, and the entrance and unfortunate prophecies of the three witches
dialogue a conversation between two or more characters; may be used in place of narration to reveal the plot or define characters/setting
e.g. Pip and Magwitch in Great Expectations
“’I think you have got the ague,’ said I.
‘I’m much of your opinion, boy,’ said he” (Dickens 17).
diction the writer’s choice of words (dictionary, get it?)
e.g. In Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” posted above: “he was speckled with barnacles,” the choice of the verb creates beauty from ugliness.
colloquial familiar, informal language (“local”)
e.g. “Hazel tells LaVerne”
“Last night / im cleanin out my / howard johnsons ladies room” (K. H. Machan)
versus “The Unkown Citizen” which is more formal, even stiff
“He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be / One against whom there was no official complaint” (W. H. Auden)
connotation the emotions and other implications associated with a word
e.g. “immigrant“ is neutral, but “alien” implies an intrusive foreigner
denotation the literal (dictionary) definition of a word
in the previous example, alien literally means “belonging to a foreign country”
dialect language spoken by a definable group of people (from a particular region, social class, etc.)
e.g. In “Hazel tells LaVerne,” the speaker’s lack of “proper” grammar reveals that she is probably a lower-income cleaning lady
formal diction dignified, impersonal, elevated language
see counterexample for colloquial, “The Unknown Citizen”
epigram a short satirical, witty, sometimes paradoxical poem; usually 2-4 lines (a brief couplet, quatrain)
e.g. in Shakespeare's Macbeth:
(Act 1 Sc. 6 lines 74-75) "To beguile the time, / look like the time."
(Act 1 Sc. 7 lines 94-95) "Away, and mock the time with fairest show. / False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
(Act 4 Sc. 2 lines 83-85) "I am in this earthly world, where to do harm / is often laudable, to do good sometime / accounted dangerous folly."
invective insulting, abusing, highly critical language
e.g. Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 4 Sc. 3 lines 67-73
"Not in the legions / of horrid hell can come a devil more damned / in evils to top Macbeth. ...I grant him bloody, / luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, / sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin / that has a name."
inversion (anastrophe)
placing the adjective after the noun when we expect to find it before the noun (a type of hyperbaton)
also placing the verb before the noun
Shakespeare does this in Macbeth, sometimes to fit his writing to the rhythm of iambic pentameter:
(Act 3 Sc. 3 lines 3-5) "He delivers / our offices and what we have to do / to the direction just." (inverted noun & adjective)
(Act 3 Sc. 2 line 19) "But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer..." (inverted noun & adjective)
(Act 4 Sc. 1 line 45) "Something wicked this way comes" (inverted verb & modifier)
IRONY
having a difference between what appears to be and what is actually true
e.g. In The Metamorphosis, we’d expect Gregor to show a little more concern that he’s transformed in to a bug overnight, but instead he says “Apart from a really excessive drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor, in fact, felt quite well and even had a really strong appetite” (Franz Kafka).
dramatic irony when the audience knows something that the characters don't;
often achieved with narrated flashbacks and--in plays--asides or monologues
e.g. in Oedipus Rex, the audience is allowed to put the pieces together way before Oedipus comes to terms with the fact that he murdered his father and slept with his mother
situational irony what actually happens is exactly opposite of what was expected
e.g. Lady Macbeth, early on, is the one to insist that Macbeth kill Duncan.
e.g. Mr. Wemmick, who comes off as a harsh man to Pip while in Jaggers's office, invites Pip to his home. Wemmick turns out to be a very caring son--a softy who enjoys creativity when it comes to home, complete with a moat and drawbridge.
verbal irony = sarcasm, saying something but meaning the opposite
e.g. “The Unknown Citizen”
“Was he happy? The question is absurd. / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard” (W. H. Auden)
poet means opposite of what his speaker, “the establishment” is saying
mood the emotional atmosphere created by the author/poet
e.g. Sophocles creates a gloomy mood using a morbid tone in saying “Thebes is tossed on a murdering sea…children die unborn” (4)
paradox a self-contradictory statement that is actually true
e.g. Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (Act 1 Sc. 1 line 12)
proverb a common short saying stating a general truth
e.g. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” implies that we ought to refrain from anticipating the future greedily.
pun a play on words
Shakespeare does this frequently, like in Macbeth:
“Much drink…makes him stand to and not stand to” (Act 2 Sc 3 lines 32-36).
sarcasm see: verbal irony
Saying the opposite of what one means
satire writing that ridicules human folly to bring about social reform
e.g. “The Unknown Soldier” satirized the unimportant priorities of the cold “establishment” to point out that life is more than being an obedient citizen who fits current social standards.
slang very informal diction (colloquial language)
e.g. Gwendolyn Brook’s “We Real Cool”
“We /strike straight…We / thin gin. We / Jazz June.”
tone the writer’s attitude toward the subject and the audience
e.g. biting, scornful, admiring
*note difference between mood and tone (see above)
voice the unique characterization of the speaker through tone and other elements of style
e.g. the narration by young Pip in Great Expectations is rather humorous, but also sophisticated and acutely observant, as if he’s telling his story as an older, wiser self:
“Uncle Pumblechook; a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish…every Christmas Day…presented himself, as a profound novelty with exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumbbells” (Charles Dickens 22).
Form
allegory a narration or description where events, actions, characters, setting, & objects symbolize specific ideas/abstractions, usually restricted to a single meaning
e.g. Galway Kinnell’s “Blackberry Eating”
e.g. e.e. cummings’s “anyone lived in a pretty how town”
e.g. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”
anecdote a short personal---and often humorous---story often told to convey one specific point
e.g. In the second chapter of John Gardner’s Grendel, Grendel talks about the first time he encountered men when they thought he was a tree god. On the surface, his recount was humorous, but being satirical, it’s message was actually rather sad.
diary prose written as if one is recording aspects of one’s life; plot will progress chronologically as seen through the speaker’s eyes
e.g. The Diary of Anne Frank or any similar memoirs
discourse written or spoken communication, debate
e.g. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth argue about whether to go ahead and kill Duncan (Act 1 Sc. 7)
argumentation how a speaker makes a case for his/her proposal, debating and defending it with (logical) reasoning
e.g. In Act 1 Sc. 7 of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to follow through with Duncan’s murder, asking “what beast was ‘it then, / That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man” as if it were Macbeth’s duty as a husband to do what it takes to become king (Shakespeare lines 54-56).
description a delivery of details for direct characterization, establishing setting, conveying some other idea, etc.
e.g. Pip’s characterization of Uncle Pumblechook (see voice)
e.g. in J. F. Nims’s “Love Poem” the woman “whose palms are bulls in china” is said to be a “misfit in any space. And never on time.”
exposition usually the beginning of a fictional work where characters and plot are introduced and setting, tone/mood may be set
e.g. In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka introduces the demanding family and boss, as well as how “One morning, …Gregor Samsa…discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. …The dreary weather…made him quite melancholy. …’O God,’ he thought, ‘what a demanding job I’ve chosen!’ …Once I’ve got together the money to pay off my parents deb…then I’ll make the big break. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.”
NARRATION how a story is told (through what speaker and using what stylistic elements)
1st person (narrator is a character in the story)
e.g. Pip, Great Expectations
2nd person (audience is a part of the story)
e.g. Goosebumps choose-your-own-fate stories
3rd person (narrator is an outside observer, detached from the actions in the story);
e.g. The Metamorphosis
3rd person omniscient is aware of all characters’ thoughts and feelings
e.g. Beowulf
ESSAY prose written to convey a particular idea, make a case for a specific point (thesis)
e.g. Ralph Ellison’s “On Becoming a Writer”
e.g. Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
formal written in an elevated, sophisticated style (i.e. formal diction)
A formal essay will usually have serious intentions, even if it is satirical and humorous like “A Modest Proposal," which pretends to suggest the solution to poverty is eating babies.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/modest.html
humorous written to entertain the audience, although funny references and use of sarcasm may contain deeper meaning (like in satire); may be formal or informal
e.g. John Updike’s “The Disposable Rocket,” which discusses certain aspects of manhood
informal written using familiar, conversational language (i.e. informal diction) that may help to more directly reach out to audience but still convincingly make a serious point
e.g. Philip Lopate’s “On Shaving a Beard”
fable a short story, typically with animal characters, that conveys a moral
e.g. Aesop’s “The Tortoise and the Hare” tells us slow and steady wins the race.
genre a classification of writing/literature
e.g. short stories vs. novels, Shakespearean vs. Greek tradgedies
novel usually a lengthy work written in prose with a complex plot that contains several minor climaxes in addition to the climax of the major issue
e.g. Great Expectations, Grendel
parable a simple story used to teach a moral/spiritual lesson
e.g. In the Bible, there is a story of the prodigal son who strays from home, squanders his father’s money, but is still reaccepted by his father. (lesson of God’s forgiveness)
prose language written/spoken in its ordinary form, without any metrical structure (opposite of verse)
e.g. The Porter in Macbeth Act 2 Sc. 3 speaks to Macduff in prose. Notice how his speech is not broken up into 10-syllable lines like the other characters, who are of a higher status. “Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance” (lines29-31).
RHETORICAL FORMS the following three are ways a writer makes a case for his argument and wins over his audience:
ethos an appeal based on the character (the reputation) of the speaker
e.g. advertisements for family-owned companies, or companies that have been around for more decades
e.g. Hollister, est. 1922
e.g. http://about.ralphlauren.com/default.asp?ab=footer_aboutus
pathos an appeal based on emotion & sympathy
e.g. commercials that ask for donations to impoverished children, speeches like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
logos an appeal based on logic and reason
e.g. statistical analyses, historical documents
e.g. world history textbook
verse language written/spoken in broken lines, often with a set rhythmic pattern that may rhyme; the opposite of prose
e.g. William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” does not rhyme, but its one sentence is written in the shape of 4 wheelbarrows
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
e.g. Shakespeare’s Macbeth, written in iambic pentameter (5 sets of stressed & unstressed syllables per line)
Syntax
antithesis putting together two opposing terms, phrases, or clauses to emphasize their contrasts
e.g. In Act 1 Sc. 5 of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth says “What thou wouldst highly, / that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false / and yet wouldst wrongly win” (lines 20-23).
e.g. famous saying “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)
balanced sentence this is constructed to emphasize a similarity/contrast between two or more of its parts (its words, phrases, clauses)
e.g. “The wind in our ears drove us crazy and pushed us on.” (taken from class handout)
coherence this refers to the logic & consistency of a piece of writing (so that the individual statements fit together to make a convincing overall argument)
e.g. Lady Macbeth’s reasoning for having Macbeth murder Duncan (Act 1 Sc. 7)
complex sentence this contains one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses
e.g. “If he could have known how nearly the compliment had lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would have paid it” (Dickens 174, from Great Expectation )
compound complex this contains two or more independent clauses, and one or more dependent clauses
e.g. “It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the garden, was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which her grandpapa would have come in tote the book, if he ever had come at all” (Dickens 171 in Great Expectations).
ellipsis the non-metrical omission of letters or words that does not prevent the reader from understanding what is meant
“There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the baby’s next successor who was as yet neither” (171). Here in Great Expectations, Dickens doesn’t bother with explaining “either” and “neither” to mean “boy or girl.”
inverted sentence reordering the components of a sentence differently from how it would normally be written
(switching the subject and the verb to fit a phrase to a poetic rhythm, etc.)
Shakespeare does this frequently. See examples under inversion (anastrophe)
In Great Expectations:
"My father's family name being Pirrip...my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip" (Dickens 1).
"I took it upon myself to impress Biddy...with the grave obligation I considered my friends under" (Dickens 129).
"He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off" (Dickens 128).
loose sentence this expresses its main thought in the beginning of the sentence in correct grammatical form, but then is followed by a string of details, often in segmented phrases
e.g. Dylan Thomas’s Quite Early Some Morning
“I was born in a large Welsh town at the beginning of the Great War, an ugly, lovely town (or so it was, and is to me) crawling, sprawling by a long and splendid curving shore where truant boys and sandfield boys and old men, from nowhere, beachcomed, idled, and paddled,...hung about on the fringes of the crowd to hear the fierce religious speakers who shouted at the sea, as though it were wicked and wrong to roll in and out like that, whitehorsed and full of fishes.”
Sources for definitions:
**http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display_rpo/terminology.cfm#rhythm**
**http://encarta.msn.com/**
Rhetorical forms were found in:
"The Art of Rhetoric: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos." Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) :: Architecture, Business, Engineering, IT, Humanities, Science__. 18 Apr. 2009 <http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/webclass/web/project1/group4/>.
For definition and examples of an epigram:
http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/literaryterms/g/epigram.htm
http://www.quotations.me.uk/literary-terms/29-epigram.htm
For definition and examples of inversion (anastrophe) and inverted sentences
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_I.html
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_A.html#anastrophe_anchor
http://esl.about.com/od/advancedgrammar/a/inversion.htm
The Metamorphosis quotes were taken from:
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Trans. Ian Johnston. <http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm>.